starlight
by NoxLamiarum
Summary: "I know what you're thinking, this asshole forgot I was blind, but I didn't. You can't see the meteor shower, but you can still enjoy it. Namely, sitting around drinking beer until sunrise" [or: That one weird time Matt touched Foggy's face]


Thanks to the lovely Phil for betaing. Hope you guys enjoy!

* * *

" _No_ ," Foggy Nelson groaned as he came through the door to the little dorm room they shared, "Finals are over, right? I didn't dream last week? Because—" Springs creaked as Foggy dramatically flung himself onto his bed, "it looks like you're reading something. And that worries me."

"Why?" Matt laughed. "Are you suggesting there's something inherently evil about reading?" He took his hands off the sheets of braille and slipped his glasses on.

"No, but anyone who just finished finals should be letting their brain rest. I'll give you twenty dollars if those _aren't_ the textbooks for summer semester."

"Am I that predictable?" Matt Murdock shifted in his chair so that he faced his roommate. Foggy knew him so well, sometimes, and Matt wondered just when that had happened. When they'd become best friends, become more than just amicable roommates and fellow students. His acquaintances normally came and went as necessity and proximity waxed and waned, but Foggy was different. He'd managed to bypass all Matt's usual defenses and walls and make himself at home. He was—

"Nah, you're just a huge nerd." There was a smile in his voice and his skin smelled like fresh air and cut grass. "But you'll burn out if you don't take time to relax."

"Fine," Matt leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands. "I'm relaxed." A grin tugged the corners of his mouth and he gave in, letting it bloom across his face. Foggy's happiness was always infectious and sometimes it made Matt almost giddy. His pulse was light and fluttery compared to the other man's.

"Perfect." Foggy paused, inhaled, "So, now hear me out, I read a meteor shower is peaking tonight and it's supposed to be really awesome. I think we should go watch it—"

Matt parted his lips, his blissful peace faltering, but Foggy cut him off.

"—and I know what you're thinking, this asshole forgot I was blind, but I didn't. You can't see the meteor shower, but you can still enjoy it. Namely, sitting around drinking beer until sunrise."

"Right." He felt the smile leave his face and couldn't stop it. He didn't relish the idea of being surrounded by loud drunk people all gushing about something he couldn't enjoy. "I'm not really up for a party tonight—"

"It's not a party," Foggy said, a little confused. "Just us. And a few six packs."

"What you're saying, then," Matt felt a little of the easy happiness he'd felt before return, "is that you want to see the meteor shower but don't want to sit outside in the dark alone?"

"Yes," Foggy admitted as if Matt had discovered some complex villainous plot of his, "Fine, you got me. But I'll buy us dinner before. I'll wine you and dine you, all for the low, low price of keeping me company. I wouldn't ask, but space is just _so cool_."

"You make a compelling argument, Mr. Nelson. I'm in." Truthfully, Foggy had him at _just us_ , but he wasn't going to admit that. And it was worth it, the void in his heart where the sky used to be, because Foggy laughed and clapped him on the shoulder and told him to pick the restaurant, and the beer, too.

A few hours later, their backpacks stuffed with blankets, snacks, and alcohol, they set out into the wilderness, or at least as close as they could get without risking actual danger. They abandoned the city for the suburbs and Foggy led them to a little park.

"This will do," Foggy said as they walked over the springy grass. "Still some light pollution from the city, but I can see the stars." He shifted his bag on his shoulder and used his other hand to touch Matt's elbow. "Come on."

"Hey, don't parks usually close after dark?" Matt asked as his friend guided him around trees and benches. He played along automatically, moving his cane back and forth in front of him and stepping seamlessly over a dip in the earth.

"Uh, yeah. Usually."

"Are we trespassing?" Mischief seeped into his voice.

"Technically, yes. But we won't leave any trash or vandalize anything, so it's a victimless crime."

"That what you're going to tell the police when we're arrested?" Matt was joking now, but Foggy answered him solemnly.

"No, I'll run for it, and you play the blind card."

Foggy stopped them in the middle of a wide lawn. The nearest buzzing streetlight was several dozen yards away. Trees dotted the area, leaves whispering in the breeze, and bugs droned around them. The absence of city noise unnerved Matt as he swung the bag off his shoulders and knelt. Unzipping the backpack and pulling a blanket out, he spread it next to Foggy's, pretending to check it was in place with his hands. The edges overlapped until he tugged his away, not wanting to encroach on Foggy's personal space.

Once they were settled on the soft grass, Foggy held out an open beer.

"As promised, the alcoholic part of payment." He found Matt's hand and guided it to the glass bottle.

Guilt stabbed through him, because just the act of needing help was dishonest, and because part of him enjoyed the casual contact of their hands, Foggy's skin warm and soft against his—

( _tell him I should tell him just tell him it's not like he'll freak out and run away he won't leave me in the middle of nowhere alone he's Foggy just tell him the TRUTH_ )

—but he took the beer, sipped it and forced a smile onto his lips.

"Thanks."

"Any time, Matty. You're the one doing me a favor." Foggy leaned back, head tilted up to watch the stars.

"So, what are they like? The meteors?" He took another long drink from the beer and tried to silence the incessant need in him to tell his best friend about his abilities.

"Uh, well, I haven't seen anything yet."

"Then tell me about the stars. Paint me a picture." In this there was honesty, at least.

"Okay. Well, it's a new moon, so the stars are crazy bright. There's no clouds—wait, there's one, but it's tiny. Oh—hang on, no, just a plane, no shooting stars yet."

"Are you sure you got the date right?" Matt could trace the path of the plane by its sound, and he could hear a beetle as it crawled across the edge of his blanket. Far away a siren rose and fell and faded away, but he focused on Foggy's voice instead of the rest of it.

"Yeah, but it won't really peak until closer to dawn. I looked it up and everything. You, Matt Murdock, are about to witness the glory that is the Arietids."

"I still think you made the whole thing up," he laughed.

"Ah, yes, I lured you into the suburbs to harvest your organs." Beer sloshed in Foggy's bottle as he took another drink, and Matt tried to ignore the wet sound of his lips against its mouth.

( _tell him tell him tell him for God's sake don't sit here and invade his privacy he should know what you can do it's bad enough you let him go out of his way to accommodate you when you don't even need it but this crosses so many lines just tell him so it's not a violation of your friendship tell him so he can leave if he wants_ )

"You could at least lie and say the whole sky's ablaze with streaks of light."

"I'd never lie to you," Foggy said, light and airy and it tore Matt apart from the inside. Foggy _meant_ it, and while he'd lied before, it had never been about anything important.

They lapsed into comfortable silence, each drinking his beer. Foggy seemed content, his heartbeat and breathing were normal for someone stretched out on the ground. Matt himself was caught in the midst of a war, fighting with himself about telling Foggy. He became so lost in thought that when Foggy's pulse jumped, he did too.

"Finally saw one!"

"Well?" Matt swallowed, trying to calm himself down. He drained the last of his beer.

"It was kinda small, actually." Foggy opened another drink for Matt, soft hiss and scent of hops and carbonation spilling into the air.

"More will follow, I'm sure." He waited for Foggy to verbally offer him the beer before he held out his hand.

( _it would be so much easier if he knew think about it you could share so much with him just tell him_ )

Instead of speaking, Matt sipped his beer in the hope that it would drown the little voice inside him for good, or at least for the rest of the night. A minute passed and Foggy exclaimed that he saw another shooting star, then they fell into comfortable conversation. Matt had never meet someone so easy to talk to, someone who could manage at the same time to be loquacious and a good listener.

They talked and Matt lost track of time, lost track of the roiling guilt in his stomach, and though his desire to come clean to Foggy didn't leave—it never left, not really, it was always there, a constant buzz near the base of his skull—it dimmed to a manageable level.

"They're falling more frequently, now," Foggy said as Matt finished his fourth beer. "I wish—"

"Don't say it out loud, or it won't come true," Matt interrupted, because he knew the end of that sentence and he couldn't bear to hear it, didn't want the _I wish you could see it_ that was inevitable. At New Year's they'd watched fireworks and Foggy had whispered each color as it went off, so by the time Matt heard the boom he could picture them clearly. But this was different. He didn't want pity from Foggy, because this—spending time with him, the fresh, cool summer night air, their low voices joining the soft quiet of the deserted park—this was good, better than good. This was sublime. He didn't need pity, but he ached for Foggy to understand that.

"Huh?"

Matt played dumb. "When you wish on a shooting star, you know. Can't tell anyone or it ruins the magic."

"Oh," Foggy sounded unsure for a moment, then he recovered. "Right. Yeah."

"Don't tell me you've been wasting all these wish opportunities." He couldn't resist playing along with his own joke now, and he struggled to keep his face straight. "Think about it—an A in every class, the perfect job when we graduate. Money—"

"—And beautiful ladies. Can't believe I forgot."

Matt was glad Foggy faced away from him and didn't see how his smile faltered. The casual mention of women reminded Matt of something that should have stuck the first time: Foggy was straight. What he wanted, what he felt, it was never going to happen.

( _and that's the heart of it isn't it you're scared if you tell him one giant secret you'll tell him the other and that one will destroy what you have you pathetic coward_ )

"You've still got plenty of time." He waved his empty beer in Foggy's general direction, forcing a smile. By now he was pleasantly buzzed, warm and a little fuzzy.

"You get to make wishes, too." Foggy sat up, took Matt's empty bottle and put it in his bag with the others, then grabbed his hand. His touch was gentle but burned like fire over Matt's skin and made his pulse race.

"Foggy, buddy, what—?"

"Shh, hang on, I'm waiting." His head turned up to watch the sky again.

"For what?"

"Hah!" Foggy ran his index finger across the back of Matt's hand, the stroke fast and light. It sent electric shivers along his arm. "Imagine that, but bright white against an almost black backdrop, thin and sharp and fleeting."

"Oh." He couldn't say anything else, couldn't trust his voice not to crack. Seconds passed and Foggy's heartbeat picked up. He hastily dropped Matt's hand.

"Sorry, that was stupid—"

"No, it wasn't. Now I can make a wish, right?" He grinned and warmth filled him that had nothing to do with alcohol.

( _my wish is that I don't fuck this up please please never let me fuck our friendship up_ )

"What'd you wish for?" Foggy was still nervous, that much was obvious from his voice.

"If I tell you, it won't come true, remember?" He tried to sound offhand, at ease, not at all like he never wanted Foggy's hand to leave his. Maybe if he pretended not to hate himself hard enough it would become reality.

"Pretty sure I can guess, anyway," Foggy laughed. "Kinda obvious."

Matt nearly panicked before he realized what his friend meant. "You—you'd be surprised."

"Very mysterious." Foggy laid back down on his blanket and was silent a moment. "If you could see one thing, though, what would it be?"

"You." The truth slipped out before his mind could fabricate a lie and he could have blamed the beer but it wasn't that. He'd woven so many lies around his relationship with Foggy that he couldn't bear to add another.

"Really?" He sounded half flattered, half doubtful. "Out of all the beautiful things in the world—"

"Well," Matt scrambled to recover, "you're my best friend, and I don't even know what you look like." That was technically true. He only knew the way sound moved over his skin, and it gave him a rough estimation but nothing near a complete picture.

"Imagine Harrison Ford, but even more attractive. Honestly, I'd just make you jealous, so it's for the best." He started laughing halfway through that statement and Matt couldn't help but join in.

"I'm serious," he insisted when his giggles abated. "I have a version of you in my head, but it's not complete." Foggy was not only a shape marked out by the sound of his voice, his gait, his heart and lungs, he was a collection of scents, too, of rhythms.

"Like I said, blond Harrison Ford, only hotter."

"Impressive. So impressive you're going to have to prove it."

( _what are you doing stop talking oh my god you had one job and that was to not self-destruct your one meaningful relationship what are you doing shut up now_ )

"Shall I describe myself to you in detail?" Foggy giggled, "I don't have a picture of Han Solo handy so it might be vague—"

"No—I mean—"

( _shut up shut up SHUT UP_ )

"—never mind."

"Oh." Foggy's breath hitched and he got nervous again. "Do you want to—I mean—you're talking about touching my face, right?"

"No—it's—I was only joking. Doesn't matter what you look like," he lied so badly even he couldn't pretend he'd managed to pull it off.

"C'mon," Foggy sat up. "It's okay, you can do it. Touch away." Somehow the man managed to sound completely relaxed about the situation even though his heart said otherwise. He was still uncomfortable but was covering it to accommodate Matt.

"It's fine, I promise." This time he put more effort into the lie. "I don't want to invade your personal space."

"For you, I have no bubble." Foggy's voice and movements held no trace of guile as he gently took Matt's wrists and brought his hands up to his face. "You shouldn't be deprived of this gorgeous face."

"I—" Matt swallowed, overwhelmed with a rush of gratitude that turned to guilt. "Thank you," was all he managed as he opened his fists and placed his fingertips near Foggy's temples. He knew exactly where his hands were in relation to the areas of his friend's face, but he had to continue his regular-blind-guy act, even now, even doing something so intimate.

Foggy's hair was soft, softer than Matt imagined, and that realization—that he'd been thinking about this moment, anticipating it—almost made him call the whole thing off. The only thing that kept him from it was the fact that Foggy would certainly ask him what was wrong, and he'd assume it was something he'd done, and under that kind of pressure Matt would break and tell him everything. Between the two choices of hurting Foggy and losing him as a friend he knew which one he'd pick. As long as Foggy was happy, it didn't matter if Matt was by his side.

With deliberate slowness, he traced the lines of Foggy's face, fingers ghosting over the smooth skin of his forehead down to his brows as he tried to sear the feeling into his heart forever. Foggy's face was flushed from alcohol and what Matt knew was residual awkwardness. As he moved his hands, the details of his friend's face came into focus. Foggy still had bags under his eyes from the sleepless weeks leading up to finals, and he had a little stubble coming in because he hadn't shaved since the day before. As the moments stretched on Matt began to ignore the voice in his mind that insisted he was disgusting for doing this, for enjoying it as much as he did, for taking advantage of their friendship. And Foggy relaxed, too, his pulse and breathing slowing back to normal.

Until Matt touched his lips. As Matt's thumb brushed his mouth, Foggy twitched and his heart hammered in his chest. Matt longed to believe it meant something more than a purely physical response to stimuli, but he murdered the hope before it could truly take form. As Foggy's skin flushed more Matt reminded himself that his friend's vague arousal was reflexive. He didn't want Matt, didn't need him.

Once he'd mapped every inch of Foggy's face, he had to keep himself from jerking his hands away.

"Well?" Foggy was hesitant, heart still racing.

"You're right. Much better than Harrison Ford." Somehow Matt found it in himself to smile. "Sorry if that was weird—"

"No, man, anytime—I mean—you know. Not any time, right? You only have to do it once?"

Since he was still alive, Matt had never literally had his heart ripped out of his chest, but in that moment he understood a fraction of the pain and shock of it. "Yeah, just once. I'll remember what you look like." The quiet of the park turned to oppressive silence and he sought refuge in the myriad of subtle sounds to distract himself. For the first time that night he regretted coming with Foggy. This had been a mistake.

A mosquito landed on his arm and he couldn't even summon the will to swat it away. Maybe while the bite was there it would remind him not to be such a hopeless fool.

 _(this is what you get for letting him get this close you don't get to have this remember_ )

A void stretched between them, and Matt wanted to scream, to call the night over and head back to campus. But before he had the chance, Foggy spoke up.

"Shit, there's a bug on you—" He slapped Matt's arm only hard enough to crush the mosquito, but the contact of their skin made his heart flutter and his chest ache. "Oh, sorry, there's, uh, pretty sure it's your own blood all over you. Hang on—" Foggy rubbed his thumb across the skin of Matt's forearm.

Matt was almost distracted enough by his own inner turmoil to miss the change in Foggy, the nerves again, the arousal. His hand stilled but didn't draw away.

"Foggy?" Matt breathed, afraid to speak too loudly, afraid of scaring the moment away. The ache inside him crescendoed into an infinity of possible futures—he could place his hand over Foggy's, lean forward, find the man's lips with his own and throw off all pretenses of the usual blindness and tell him _everything_ —but instead what came out of his mouth was: "How's the sky look?"

Infinity collapsed back into the singular universe they occupied and Foggy pulled his hand away like Matt's skin burned him.

"They're really coming down now. One every few seconds."

"You make it sound almost like rain."

"Yeah. Fiery space rain." Foggy chuckled. "Way better than normal rain."

What settled back around them wasn't exactly the same as before—now there was something deeper between them, something just shy of sharpness—but it was every bit as easy as it had been. Matt turned his face up towards the sky and imagined he could feel the meteors dart across the blankness of space like a shiver up his spine.

"I don't know," Matt shrugged. "Rain has its uses."


End file.
